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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26533081">time enough</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/pseuds/RowboatCop'>RowboatCop</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Knives Out (2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(if faking an orgasm made you puke you'd be bossy too), 16000 words where nothing happens, F/M, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, No Plot, UST, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, alternating pov, marta isn't exactly a dom but she knows what she likes and she's bossy, my kink lol, only scenes, two people who love each other being nice to each other</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 05:55:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>16,112</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26533081</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/pseuds/RowboatCop</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you make friends like me on all your cases?" <br/>He huffs out a single breath at such an absurd idea.<br/>"I have never met anyone like you,” he says.</p><p>Scenes from the relationship of Marta Cabrera and Benoit Blanc, as they grow to enjoy a more intimate friendship. No plot, just flirting and (eventually) sex. Complete.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Benoit Blanc/Marta Cabrera</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>203</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/gifts">zauberer_sirin</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>By the time he walks away from the new Cabrera estate, Benoit Blanc knows he's not going to let Marta Cabrera slip out of his life. Meeting her, understanding her heart, has felt like meeting someone he is <em> supposed </em>to know. He has only to follow the arc of their few days together to see its terminus. It is gravity, truth — inevitable. </p><p>He's not so presumptuous as to assume he knows how she should fit in his life, nor how he might fit in hers, but he knows all the same. </p><p><em> Perhaps we deserve each other</em>, he’d said, back when he hadn’t yet found the hole in the center of the donut hole, when none of it had sat quite right. Back when the kind heart of Marta Cabrera was about to be destroyed by that wicked family. Maybe now, though, it can mean something good. </p><p>Perhaps they can deserve each other.</p><p>So when Lieutenant Elliott calls him before Ransom’s first hearing, three weeks after the arrest, Benoit asks if he might tag along on some of their final work tying up loose ends. Elliott has done a lot of the forensic work needed to tie Ransom to the fire, but there is more investigation of poor Fran and her involvement. </p><p>And so he stands on the Cabrera porch once again. </p><p>The three weeks have made a big difference in the weather if nothing else, and the chilly fall air has broken out into snow flurries. Elliott and Wagner are both wearing scarves tucked in their coats, but he feels the cold prickle at the skin on his bare throat. </p><p>“You know you’re not needed as a witness until the actual trial.” Elliott isn’t annoyed, but it’s clear Blanc will need to be very careful not to step on the toes of the local constabulary. No problem, he thinks, since he only has one concern left in this case. </p><p>“I am very aware of your competence, my friend,” he says, hastening with his reassurances. “I assure you that the nature of my visit is more personal.” </p><p>“He wants to see Marta,” Trooper Wagner informs Elliott, a little too much excitement flashing across his features. </p><p>Elliott rolls his eyes, but with good humor.</p><p>"Just don't let your puppy love ruin my case."</p><p>Blanc feels the urge to protest, but his lips have barely parted and he can’t even think of what he means to say before the door opens a crack. He holds his breath in anticipation of seeing Marta's face again, but is instead greeted with that of an older woman who is obviously her mother. </p><p>She looks nervously at the two police officers, and without another thought, Blanc pushes himself to the front of the group. </p><p>"You must be Mrs. Cabrera. I am Benoit Blanc, and these —" </p><p>She opens the door fully at that, any trace of nerves gone. </p><p>“You are the detective who saved Marta,” she says, rather than asks, and he shakes his head reflexively. </p><p>“I merely helped her understand the full truth of the situation, Mrs. Cabrera. She didn’t need saving because she had done nothing wrong.” </p><p>That makes her smile, wide. </p><p>“And these are with you?” She looks back and forth between Elliott and Wagner. </p><p>Elliott raises an eyebrow at him, and the meaning is clear — <em> You were supposed to stay out of the way. </em> Blanc shrugs, all innocence. Well, <em> mostly </em>innocence. He wasn’t about to let them make Mrs. Cabrera nervous, after all.  </p><p>“I’m merely here while Lieutenant Elliott and Trooper Wagner,” he points at each in turn, “ask a few questions.”  </p><p>She nods and invites the three into the house — there’s some quick shouting, her up the stairs and someone back down, the Spanish too fast for his ears to follow, and then she's shepherding them in. </p><p>"Come in, come in." She takes their coats, moving quickly, but he thinks it's adamance rather than impatience. When she takes his coat, Benoit watches her frown at his lack of scarf.</p><p>"And how are you enjoying the new Cabrera Estate?"</p><p>She laughs, just a touch manic. </p><p>"None of us knows what to think," she says, shakes her head and looks around the room full of someone else’s knick knacks. </p><p>"I imagine it would be quite a lot to deal with without the legal battle on top of it all."</p><p>Whatever she might have said next is cut off by Marta’s footsteps creaking down the stairs. He looks up at her and can’t help but smile — she’s still overwhelmed by everything, that much is clear, but she looks better than she had in the brief days of their acquaintance.</p><p>“Detective Blanc,” she says, perhaps slightly breathless, or perhaps it is only that the sight of her makes him slightly breathless and he projects. “I wasn’t sure if I’d see you again.” </p><p>Elliott cuts in: “Benny asked if he could tag along while Trooper Wagner and I ask a few questions about Fran.” </p><p>“No problem,” Marta says, “I haven’t touched her room, if you want to —”</p><p>“That would be great,” Elliott agrees, and he and Wagner head off. “You two can catch up while we look around.” </p><p>Benoit is embarrassed for a moment that any ability to be more circumspect in his motives has been stolen from him, but Marta just smiles. </p><p>“Would you like to take a walk?” Marta asks the question, almost shy but not quite, her hand gesturing out at the grounds. </p><p>“He doesn’t have a scarf, mija,” Mrs. Cabrera says, disapproval evident. </p><p>“He can borrow one of mine, Mama.” </p><p>And that’s how he finds himself walking back out the front door in his coat, neck circled by dark, burnt-orange wool that smells of a light citrus fragrance and a pleasing musk that he thinks must be all Marta Cabrera. </p><p>“Sorry it’s not your color,” she says, a careful smile in his direction. </p><p>“I suppose it is not,” he pulls the fabric away from his neck to look at it, holds it to his face and poses briefly for her. “I have been told that I have a Spring complexion.” The words are light, teasing, and they have the intended effect of making her laugh. “However, it is warm, so I do thank you.”</p><p>She smiles easily, waves off thanks. </p><p>“My mother still complains that it is always so cold here,” Marta says, and though she sounds mildly exasperated with her mother, the way she rubs her arms indicates that she agrees. </p><p>“And how long has your family lived up here?”</p><p>“Twelve years? We moved up from Miami when I started college. Scholarship.” She shrugs her shoulders and he nods. “What about you? Where is your home?” </p><p>“I live on the coast of Mississippi, though I confess I travel so much I don’t spend half my time there.” She nods, and he can see her absorbing this information. </p><p>Quiet falls between them as they walk, as he wonders if more questions about her well-being would be too presumptuous. </p><p>They pause at the edge of a grove of trees that’s well out of view of the house. He hadn’t realized where she was leading them, out to a place where it seems they’re more alone, where the estate doesn’t eat up the environs.</p><p>“I’m okay,” she says finally, as though she read his mind but was waiting until she didn’t have to see the house to say it. As though perhaps not seeing the house makes it more true.</p><p>He takes the statement as permission — to ask more, to verify the full truth. </p><p>“I am glad,” he says. “It can’t be easy, though, to face the future of this estate and the trial while mourning a friend.” </p><p>There’s a small bench, wooden slats warmed by the sun enough that they can sit on it, very close together. He can feel the warmth that radiates from her, her knee pressing to the side of his leg when she shifts to look at him.</p><p>“No. It’s not.” She forces a smile, but he can see the wetness in her eyes, her arms wrapped around herself. "I thought I would have stopped crying about him by now." Her posture doesn’t invite the comfort of a touch, but he wants to give her something.</p><p>“You were so mired in guilt, and then the world was turned upside down before you had any chance to feel the full weight of your grief.”</p><p>Her eyes close for a moment, a few tracks of tears on her cheeks.</p><p>“It’s hard because sometimes I’m so angry at Harlan,” she says. “How he could...do this to me.”</p><p>“Yes, I do believe he might have handled the whole matter of his will with more care. As it is, he rather left you to the wolves.” He wonders if Harlan Thrombey just underestimated the vile machinations of his family, or if he could have somehow made this all right if there had been more time.</p><p>“I always used to tell him that he had trained his whole family to confuse love and money. He was trying, you know, to fix things with them. If he had lived, I think he could have. But this… Even if he meant to help, I was still a pawn in the games he was playing with the family. Wasn’t I?” </p><p>“If he really was trying to make things right, then perhaps you can just know that he didn’t intend for it to end like this,” he says.</p><p>The memory of witnessing Harlan Thrombey’s premature death clearly hits Marta across her face, and more tears slip down her cheeks.</p><p>He lets her cry for a while — minutes that seem much longer than they are as he holds back any offer of some kind of comfort. She’s still drawn into herself, after all, and he doesn’t want to push it. Finally, he touches her shoulder for just a moment, not even long enough to feel the warmth of her through her coat, just because he needs to. </p><p>“He’d have wanted you to be happy.” He says it with finality even though he can’t fully grapple with the choices made by the late Harlan Thrombey. Still, having met Miss Marta Cabrera, knowing that the man had loved her in some way, he thinks it’s logical to assume that much.</p><p>“Thank you,” she says, eyes closed. He watches as she draws two deep breaths before she opens her eyes and meets his. “My mother and Alice are worried about the house and the money, and Alan is worried about the publishing, and the police are here for the trial. I haven’t gotten to just...breathe.”</p><p>“You are most welcome,” he says because it’s true — if this is how he fits in her life, as the person who lets her breathe, he will be happy. “Would you like to sit out here for a while longer?” </p><p>“No, let’s go back. I’ll make some tea?” </p><p>He nods and falls into step with her back to the house, as she tells him some of the options they’re considering for the estate.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It shouldn’t surprise her, but somehow it still does, when the Thrombeys close ranks around Ransom. Maybe it’s the only thing Linda and Richard agree on at all. Even Meg, even Meg who hated Ransom and was friends with Fran, even Meg will testify for the defense.</p><p>The lawyers have warned her, so she knows it’s coming — maybe that makes it worse, the way the fear and the anger have time to fester. </p><p>But as she approaches the courthouse, all alone, she feels hollow.</p><p>Her mother is safe, now — Green Card, on the way to citizenship if she wants it — but she still hyperventilates at the idea of a courtroom. Alice finally left for school.  </p><p>So she’s alone and hollow. </p><p>She’s been here a few times for jury duty, but it’s different now, as though the building somehow changed overnight, grew bigger and scarier and more unwelcoming. The march from the parking lot to the stone steps makes her feel like she might be the one on trial, like she’s walking to her death, and she finds herself scanning the wall around the courthouse hopefully, not sure of what she’s looking for until she sees him.</p><p>Detective Blanc has seen her first, though, because he’s already putting out his cigar and striding towards her, wearing his brown coat and a blue scarf her mother knit specifically to match his eyes. </p><p>
  <em> (“He has very nice eyes,” her mother had said over knitting needles and late-night reruns. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Mama!”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Not for me.” Her innocent, somehow knowing shrug. “I’m just saying.”) </em>
</p><p>“Miss Cabrera,” he greets her, slightly formal in a way that he always is, but perhaps also more so than usual. Or maybe that’s just her. </p><p>“Detective Blanc.”</p><p>He pauses in front of her, eyes sliding over her face like he’s reading her.</p><p>“You look like you’re about to engage in some mistruthin,’” he says, his lips barely curved into a smile, and it makes her laugh.</p><p>Her hand slides over her stomach, which does keep heaving. </p><p>“I feel like it,” she admits.</p><p>Detective Blanc nods once, and then lays a gentle hand on her shoulder as he starts them towards their courtroom. It’s nice — to suddenly feel less alone, to feel supported as she goes to face down this awful family.</p><p>She’s surprised, though, when he pulls them into an alcove away from the courtroom. She’d sat out here once while waiting for voir dire, trying to think of what she would say if a lawyer asked a question about immigration, about whether she’d ever broken a law, about... </p><p>“Hey,” Detective Blanc pulls her attention from worrying about the past on top of the present. “No matter what happens today, you have done nothing wrong. That family treated you abysmally. They tried to break you, and they failed.”</p><p>“But they’ll all be in there, just...slandering me.” </p><p>The prosecuting attorneys have been fairly certain that questioning her character will be a key part of their case, even though it won’t change the facts of the trial. Even though her character has nothing to do with Ransom’s attempted murder, and murder, and arson charges.</p><p>“That’s probably true. But whatever lies they try to tell about you, I have plenty of evidence of their bad characters. And mine has the benefit of being true.”</p><p>She can’t help her smile, can’t believe how he can make her feel like things are okay.</p><p>“Come on, now.”</p><p>He sits beside her, warm and steady, and when Meg takes the stand to repeat the same pointless-but-hurtful accusations (<em>boinking</em>?), he grips her hand hard, just for a moment.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first time Marta sees Benoit Blanc after Ransom’s failed appeal — when it finally feels like the monster is gone after a year of trials — Blanc rings the bell mid-morning the week before Christmas. The grounds are dusted with white, and it feels peaceful, but she's been waiting anxiously, anticipating his arrival since his call yesterday.</p><p>She has to stop herself from opening the door too quickly.</p><p>When she does open it, it’s to the vision of Detective Blanc wrapped in his coat and the pale yellow scarf her mother knitted when Marta told her that he was a “Spring.” It is the second of a small collection he has accrued, and it stands out — the homemade touch among his obviously more expensive clothes. She remembers walking the grounds with him after her mother had gifted him this one, asking if he'd like her to stop her mother from making more, and the way he had smiled and praised the "bespoke designs." </p><p>Now, as he stands in her doorway, he wears the same warm smile, though his cheeks are charmingly pink from the cold. She watches him for just a moment as he maneuvers his sunglasses into the pocket of his overcoat, fumbling a folder from one hand to the other as he does so.</p><p>It's been a month since they last saw each other, since the day of Ransom’s last hearing, and she’d been so relieved to hear from him yesterday; with the case actually over, she's been panicked about how to reach out, how to keep him in her life. He's so kind and solid, and as her life has been turning over this year, his presence has kept her sane.</p><p>“Miss Cabrera,” he says, smiling with his eyes through the greeting.</p><p>“Marta,” she says, a gentle correction. “Mister Blanc —” </p><p>“If I am to call you Marta, you must do me the favor of calling me Benoit,” he says, like a re-introduction now that everything that originally threw them together is settled. They hadn’t done this in the times he’d visited during the trial and appeal and sentencing. Even when he’d sat with her while she’d cried, even when he’d always seemed more interested in making her laugh than discussing whatever point officially brought him, they’ve never done this.</p><p>He’s somehow become her best friend and they haven’t done this.</p><p>She doesn't quite understand it right then, how he so easily changes things between them. (It does not occur to her that he might think the opposite, that she's the one who has allowed them to reset the friendship growing between them.)</p><p>“Benoit,” she says, and his smile grows somehow warmer. “Come in.” </p><p>He steps through the entryway and looks around — not at all subtly — at the newly-cleared space as she takes his coat and scarf. Things have gone to auction or to charity, and everything about those choices was easier once she no longer felt obliged to consider the feelings of the people who sided with Ransom. The whole place is starting to feel less like something haunted by Harlan’s ghost and more like <em> hers</em>. Where Harlan is still present, it’s because he’s part of her. Benoit seems to approve, and even if that shouldn’t matter to her, it does.</p><p>“Marta,” he says her name carefully — slow, all open vowel over the ‘r’ — and she can’t help but smile. “I had hoped that you might allow me to impose on your friendship for a few hours today.” </p><p>“Of course,” she answers instantly because she wants to spend time with him, because she wants him to stay, because he’s appealed to the friendship between them that she’s feared was one-sided. He's given her so much during the horrible past year of her life, and she's excited by the chance to give him anything. She's excited for another reason to keep him in her life.</p><p>“You see, I’m considering taking on a new case, and I could use the keen eye of my Watson in deciding whether to accept the job.” </p><p>And she doesn’t imagine she has much to offer, really, but being asked stirs something in her chest that she doesn’t want to think about too deeply.  </p><p>“Come,” she says, directing him towards the kitchen. He follows easily, still looking around the house quite a lot.</p><p>“Is your mother, the kind Mrs. Cabrera, at home?” </p><p>“She’s in Miami,” Marta says. “Since she can travel, now, she wanted to spend the winter in the warm with her cousins.” </p><p>“That is very nice for her,” he says, nodding, “but you won’t be left alone for the holiday in this large, empty house, will you?”</p><p>“No, I’ll join them for a little while.” She leaves soon to spend two weeks there, Christmas and the New Year, and she’s looking forward to getting out of the cold. </p><p>“Well I’m awfully glad to hear that,” Detective Blanc — Benoit — says, and she wonders how he’ll spend the holiday. If she can even ask, if that wouldn’t be too —  “I will be hosting my dear mother at my house,” he says like he could read her question. </p><p>It warms her, the way he’s so gentle, the way he talks about his home and his mother, the way it always feels like he chooses each word with care. </p><p>“You’ll be enjoying the warm, too.” </p><p>“Yes.” He rubs his hands up and down his arms, across the material of the dark grey suit jacket, obviously remembering the cold outside. “I dare say Florida will be a good deal warmer than Mississippi, but we do enjoy a temperate climate on the gulf this time of year.”</p><p>They smile at each other, two people out of place in the cold winters up here, and then she steps into the kitchen to make tea. </p><p>When he has come to the house before, usually with some news about the trial, she has sat him at the kitchen table and then made the tea. Today, he follows her — actually, he pauses to leave his folder on the table and remove his suit jacket, draping it carefully over a chair, before he follows her. </p><p>Even if he's never participated, he's watched enough to know where everything is, so it's not surprising that he moves assuredly to pull down mugs while she starts the water.</p><p>Once he's set the mugs on the counter, Marta watches from the corner of her eye as he unbuttons a single button in the middle of his pale lavender shirt and tucks his faintly floral-printed black tie safely inside before moving to the fridge to retrieve the milk.</p><p>Benoit has just set down the carton of milk on the counter when she reaches for it, and her fingers brush over the top of his hand to feel surprisingly soft skin and a few coarse hairs. He's held her hand before, a moment of firm solidarity, but today the feel of him crackles with something different. The sensation rushes from her fingertips up her arm in a shiver she can’t hide, and she’s so focused on herself that she nearly misses the way his breath catches, almost like...</p><p>“What is your case?” She asks the question to stop her thoughts from going places she knows they shouldn’t. </p><p>For a moment he stares at her, distracted and blank in a way that looks foreign on his face, and she wonders if it was a lie — there's something that feels like hope, that he has no case and he just wanted the excuse to come — but then he smiles. </p><p>“The prospective client, Ms. Udo, is a home nurse,” he says, eyebrows raised at her, “who thinks the family of her most favored patient may have hastened along his death.” </p><p>“Oh,” she breathes. “Does she have evidence?” </p><p>“That is exactly what I wanted to discuss with you, my dear Watson.” </p><p>She's <em>almost</em> disappointed that he's not here just because he wants to be, but she's too charmed that he's decided to ask her opinion. </p><p>He points to the folder on the table, so she wanders over to look as he prepares their tea — Marta sitting at the table and Benoit moving around the kitchen in his shirt and suspenders, he's somehow flipped their roles on her — and she pauses when he sets a mug in front of her with a hopeful smile.</p><p>The first sip tells her it's much too sweet, but not bad, so she smiles. </p><p>“Did I prepare it to your usual specifications?” </p><p>“Yes,” she says — actually, she doesn’t even get to say because her stomach jumps half-way through the syllable and she presses her fingers to her lips and swallows, breathes, settles herself.</p><p>He looks caught for a moment between disappointment and a desire to laugh, and hides behind a sip of his own tea. Whatever his face is doing changes to a frown.</p><p>“I believe I gave you the wrong one,” Benoit says, and passes over the other mug. </p><p>It strikes her as intimate — to take a sip from a mug he’s just sipped from, to exchange cups — but he doesn’t seem to mind so she doesn’t either. </p><p>“This is perfect,” Marta says, and he smiles. </p><p>“I’m pleased to hear it.” He takes his own sip, seems happier for it, and then looks at her more seriously. “You can tell me the truth when I’ve done something wrong.”</p><p>He sounds — hurt isn’t the right word, but it’s the closest she has. </p><p>“You had not done anything wrong. The tea was fine, just not how I usually take it.” </p><p>“I would always prefer to give you something perfect rather than something just fine, Marta,” he says, his gaze locked to hers so that it seems all she can see is blue. </p><p>The words make her shiver, and she doesn’t really know what to say, so she just nods. He smiles with his eyes and his lips.</p><p>“Let us turn our attention to the death of one Mr. Robert Herman, shall we?” </p><p>He turns to pull his glasses from the pocket of his discarded suit jacket, resting them on his nose to look over the folder with her. They sit close together to look over the documents he's brought — closer than they’ve sat when he’s prepared her for testimony, when he’s come to explain the workings of the trial perhaps more than was ever necessary. He's close enough that when her eyes drift down from his face, she can see the wear around the edges of his shirt collar, how it's old but well-cared for. When he speaks, it’s in a low voice very close to her ear, and he smells like snow and mellow cigar smoke. </p><p>Still, even if it’s different, it’s the same. She’s comfortable sitting with him, going over evidence, weeding through facts. There’s surprise at first that the sum being offered for his service is so small, but he brushes it off.</p><p>“I take cases when they interest me, and when I feel my methods may help someone,” he says, eyes tracing over her face with some emotion she can’t quite pin down. </p><p>“I think you should take this one,” she says.</p><p>“Then I will,” he says like her opinion is the factor that mattered most. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He dials her number without quite knowing why he does it. </p><p>Well, that’s a lie if ever there was one — he knows exactly why he does it: he calls her because he’s short on faith in humanity tonight and her voice will help. </p><p>He does it because the inevitable terminus of his relationship with Marta was always that he would fall in love with her. How could he not? How could anyone not, he can’t help but wonder.</p><p>Officially, though, he does it to tell her the end of a case that she’d seen the beginning of.</p><p>He's had to reassure himself a few times that he hadn’t told any lies or stretched any truths in asking her opinion about the death of Mr. Robert Herman, not at all. Her insights had helped him understand the accusation of the nurse, one Ms. Udo — the truth of which was easily discovered. </p><p>It’s just that he’d had ulterior motives as well because he knows he needs to keep Marta Cabrera in his life. And, well, he imagines that calling upon her with no prior reason would be intrusive.</p><p>“Benoit.” She answers the phone with a sigh of his name that makes the back of his neck tingle. </p><p>“Marta, good evening.” </p><p>“Are you back home?”</p><p>He looks around his living room, where he’s currently sunk into his worn brown leather couch. Although he’s always liked his house, he's gone so often that it’s never exactly been ‘home.’ He’ll put up decorations tomorrow before he picks up his mother, which may help with the general atmosphere.</p><p>“I am. I will drive to New Orleans tomorrow to retrieve my mother for the holiday."</p><p>"I'm sure she's looking forward to it," Marta says, something wistful in her voice that makes him think about having <em>Marta</em> here for the holiday. He shakes off the thought. </p><p>"Are you enjoying Florida?" </p><p>"I am," she says. He thinks he can hear her smile. "I've lived in Boston for so long, you'd think it would feel like home by now, but..." </p><p>"Have you given thought to moving back?" </p><p>"Maybe," she says. "I guess not very seriously." </p><p>"And your mother and Alice and the rest of your family are well, I hope." </p><p>"They are, thank you. I believe my mom would move back here tomorrow. It's nice to see her so happy." </p><p>There’s a silence, and he could almost laugh because she is so much closer than she usually is, and yet still so far. But maudlin thoughts of his own loneliness are nothing he wants to bring to a conversation with Marta. </p><p>“So did the family do it?” She asks when the silence has probably crept on for too long, and he is reminded of his fatigue and his jet-lag.</p><p>“They did.” He runs his hand over his face because he’s tired of guilty, terrible families. </p><p>“Are you okay?”</p><p>“Yes," he answers, which is true but not true enough for Marta. "I grow weary of seeing the very worst of people.” </p><p>“I understand. It never leaves you, knowing that there are people who do these things."</p><p>"No," he says, "It doesn't ever leave you."</p><p>They sit with it for a moment, but even though there's silence between them, he thinks perhaps no one could understand him as well as she does right now. He hopes she feels that same camaraderie, that he's at least half as much a comfort to her. </p><p>They both breathe in and speak at the same time. </p><p>"But at least you help —" </p><p>"But at least you help —" </p><p>They pause again in unison. </p><p>"You help people find the truth in things. You remind people that there's still good in the world," she says. "Believe me, that matters."</p><p>He can't help but smile. </p><p>"I thank you for saying that. But I doubt I do nearly as much as a good nurse with a kind heart."</p><p>She exhales, the sound of her breath loud. </p><p>"I am going to start working part time again. I think."</p><p>"You think?" </p><p>"There's a woman in town, she knew Harlan. She can't afford regular home care, but she needs temporary help after surgery…"</p><p>"And a registered nurse who could afford to take low pay may be of help?" He doesn't like the idea of Marta being taken advantage of, but he also understands why she'd choose this in returning to work now. </p><p>"Yes. Only...I'm scared I'll second guess myself at the wrong moment."</p><p>"You have no reason to second guess yourself," he says, a careful reminder. "The truth is that you are a good nurse. It's in your bones, and not even the machinations of that damned weasel could change it."</p><p>He can almost hear her smile, wishes more than anything that he could see it. </p><p>"And you are a good detective. Your work matters."</p><p>He laughs. </p><p>"I seem to remember I wasn't much of a detective?"</p><p>"Yes, well, I spoke too soon."</p><p>"Before we found the full truth of your case."</p><p>"And that matters. Without you, I might have —" </p><p>"Marta," he cuts her off. He doesn't want to think about it.  </p><p>"I'm only saying, your work is important. You help people. You make the world make sense. Even when there are assholes, you make people feel safe."</p><p>He can feel her words in his heart; they make his gloom begin to dissipate, and he marvels at the way she makes everything better. Benoit smiles, for real, and thinks back to meeting Marta Cabrera. </p><p>"Now then," he says, "as I recall things, I made you feel so scared, you lost your lunch a dozen times."</p><p>She laughs, loudly. </p><p>"True. Were you toying with me, asking me to come along with you while you investigated?" </p><p>"I was hoping to more fully gain your confidence. You knew something you weren't saying, but I could never believe that you were a murderer."</p><p>She hums, long and low, maybe a little wistful. </p><p>“I wish I had trusted you sooner.” </p><p>“It might have made my job substantially easier,” he says, dry as toast.</p><p>She laughs at that and he can’t help but join her, resting his head backwards on the couch, eyes closed, just the sound of Marta’s laughter in his head. It chases away every bad thought, reminds him why he keeps at this even with the weariness.</p><p>He listens, eyes still closed, to the sound of her inhale and the beginning of words forming.</p><p>"Do you make friends like me on all your cases?" </p><p>He huffs out a single breath at such an absurd idea.</p><p>"I have never met anyone like you,” he says.</p><p>There's a long pause as he listens to her breathe.</p><p>"Good."</p><p>It's a warm rush — her voice and her approval and the affirmation of their friendship. He can't stop smiling, and it's hard to believe he was in a foul mood when he called her.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Benoit.” </p><p>He loves the way she says his name, the way she greets him every time she picks up the phone, like seeing his name on her caller ID has made her smile. Sometimes, the way she sounds when he calls her like this, he could almost imagine that she feels the same as he does.</p><p>He is dead tired — has been awake for most of the last twenty-four hours — but he knew he wasn’t going to sleep without hearing her voice like this. It’s become necessary at the end of a case, more and more common even when he has no case. Marta's voice at the end of the day. </p><p>“Good evening, Marta.”</p><p>“So, did the Butler do it?” </p><p>He chuckles into the phone, glances back at the folder he’d been pouring over with her a week ago. </p><p>“No, you were in fact correct; he was framed by the son.”</p><p>“I told you.”</p><p>She is <em> good </em> at this. When it’s not <em> her </em> — when she is not fearful for her own safety or that of her family, when she has no reason to mistrust the people who want to help her — she sees motives in a situation, knows when to trust someone, and visualizes the arc of a case in a way that he finds impressive. It's the way she understands the game, he supposes, but plays by her own rules. </p><p>He likes Marta’s rules.</p><p>“You did,” he says. “Perhaps you should accompany me on my next case.”</p><p>“Go with you?” </p><p>She sounds nervous, but not in a bad way he doesn’t think.</p><p>“That’s what I said.”</p><p>“Watson did usually go with Sherlock, didn’t he?” </p><p>“Mmm.” He hums his agreement as he leans his head back and closes his eyes. When he’s stuck on the phone with her, instead of being able to sit near her, he likes to sink back into the couch and let the sound of her voice wash over him.</p><p>“Will you tell people that I’m your Watson?” </p><p>“My dear Marta,” he corrects her sleepily, can hear her smile into the phone.</p><p>“I would like that,” she says, her voice quiet, intimate, and he drifts to sleep like that, Marta in his ear.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>"Marta, my dear," Benoit says, "you are a miracle worker."</p><p>He’s half-sprawled in a patio chair, out of his jacket with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his tie tucked away, his mouth half-full of the piped butter cookies she's made. The cookies are hardly miraculous, though she thinks they're quite good. Not as good as Fran could do them, but close. A tribute to her friend, and it's good to have enough distance that she can think about Fran and smile again. </p><p>Even if she knows she's not a miracle worker, she still likes Benoit's praise: his tendency towards hyperbole and the nice things he says to her on each of his visits and the way it’s so clear that he <em> means it</em>, even the hyperbole. She likes <em> him </em> in a way she hasn't had time to like someone in a long time. </p><p>But she has a lot of time now that her life feels settled. Her part time work has ended, and she's still deciding what comes next when she never has to worry about money or her mother.</p><p>And Benoit is here often. He's had a lot of case offers since the publicity of Ransom's trial on the heels of the magazine article, and he still wants her opinion as often as possible. She isn't totally sure why he does it, why he comes all the way to Boston so often — ten times so far this year — only to stay in a hotel in town. </p><p>She's come to accept that her opinion matters to him (“<em>my dear Watson </em>” he’ll still say from time to time), but he could make do with phone calls if that was all of it. She thinks. </p><p>But then, if it was something else, wouldn't he have stayed with her when she's offered? ("I couldn't possibly impose on your kind hospitality," he'd told her before this trip, and she'd backed down because she doesn't know how to tell him that she <em> wants </em> him to stay without telling him perhaps too much. Maybe that's what he wants her to do, though, is to say the part that feels like too much.)</p><p>"Would you like another?" She presses slightly on the plate of perfectly swirled cookies, slides it towards him on the small porch table. It’s almost summer, warm and pleasant, so they settled outside today instead of the kitchen table.</p><p>"I dare say I've had enough," he says, though somewhat wistfully, eyes still on the plate of cookies. He pats his belly, the barest hint of roundness visible under the faint blue check pattern of his pressed shirt, and her eyes follow the movement of his hand on his body.</p><p>Although the most attractive thing about him is his kindness, although it's his words and his eyes that she fell in love with, she's not at all surprised to realize that she likes his body. She <em> wants </em> his solid, warm presence next to her. She likes his strength and his slight softness and his suits, and she likes — too much — imagining him out of his suits.</p><p>Lately, she's obsessed with the idea of sliding his suspenders down his shoulders. </p><p>Marta hasn’t ever thought of that as something to fantasize about — sliding a man’s suspenders down his shoulders — but here she is. Perhaps because they so rarely touch, she's stuck on tame fantasies. Like, she’d like to see him in just the undershirt that she can glimpse on days like today when he has tucked his tie away.</p><p>He’s invited her to meet him in his home to go with him on a case, and she means to tell him today that she's ready, but she’s more than a little ashamed that part of the reason she’s excited to do it is so that she might catch a glimpse of him a little more undressed. In warmer weather, around his home, she can’t help but think of it.</p><p>The thought of changing the scenery of their friendship feels important, too, like it might be a chance to change what they are to each other.</p><p>The boundaries of their relationship tug at her, sometimes — the way he comes here but doesn’t stay, the way he calls her while she’s so rarely brought herself to call him. (She’s started before, sat in her room and stared at his contact info on her phone — Maybe Maybe Maybe, because he's Benoit B. now and not B. Blanc, but he's still Maybe — and thought about how horrible it would be to puke across the floor when she has to lie and say she called him for some other reason than that she wants to hear his voice.) </p><p>As she watches him, leaning back in his chair with his hand rubbing over his stomach, she can imagine their relationship being something else, imagine being able to call him whenever she wants or to reach over and touch him there because she wants to.</p><p>"Marta," she hears, snaps out of the thought of her hands on him. "Whatever are you thinking about so deeply?" </p><p>Her eyes widen as they meet his, and she searches her mind for something to say that won't be a lie. She's usually better at this, at hiding her thoughts without lying, but he's so disarming that she's off her guard. She feels the first tell-tale drop in her stomach — </p><p>"Nevermind," he says, eyes squinted just slightly in a way that could be confused or could be <em> knowing </em> and she just can’t tell. </p><p>She swallows.</p><p>"I was thinking that I will visit you next week to go on a case,” she says because it’s true. It makes him smile. “Will you make me cookies when I'm sitting on your porch?" She asks because it’s a deflection, and see, she thinks, she <em> is </em> good at this, at saying not-technically-a-lie plus a deflection when she wants to hide her thoughts. </p><p>It's just that since he's become a regular part of her life, she's not thought about him as someone she might need to hide things from. Since the day she handed him evidence of her presumed guilt, she hasn't really thought about hiding much of anything from him, except that increasingly it feels like she's lying to him about how she feels. </p><p>"I will bake you all the cookies you can eat. I have my mother’s recipe for peanut butter cookies— tell me, will that bring you as much joy as your cookies have brought me today?"</p><p>She laughs, but she likes it, his calm eagerness to please her, all wrapped in a compliment. </p><p>"Yes," she says. “Peanut butter is my favorite.”</p><p>He smiles at that, like maybe he's excited or maybe he's guessed what she was really thinking about. Somehow, she thinks it might be both.</p><p>“Next week, then?”</p><p>“Next week.” She nods, then feels a creeping sensation of worry. “If that’s —”</p><p>“That is perfect.”</p><p>She swears it <em> does </em> mean something, that he does mean it as an indication of some change between them.</p><p>They stay on the porch, enjoying each other's company, but she thinks they are both wrapped up in their own thoughts about what next week might mean. For her part, it starts to seem very stupid that she has put so much energy into hiding her feelings when she's increasingly certain that Benoit feels the same way. She thinks that perhaps he is waiting for her to make a change between them. </p><p>“Benoit,” she asks when he’s collecting his things, preparing to leave for his hotel before he catches a plane in the morning. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay here tonight?” </p><p>He looks at her very carefully, like he understands her real question. </p><p>“I am certain that I would like that very much, Marta.” He steps closer to her, almost impossibly close. </p><p>“But?” </p><p>“But I worry that in this house, I will always feel like Detective Benoit Blanc who came and saw your kind heart among a flock of vultures, who helped you arrive at the truth that you'd done nothing wrong. And, were we to come to enjoy a more intimate friendship…” He pauses, eyes searching hers for a moment, and her heart thuds in her chest. “Well, I would first like a chance to be the Benoit Blanc who is just a man, just a friend to Marta Cabrera. Would that be acceptable to you?”</p><p>It steals her breath a little, how completely he's laid himself out, how openly he waits for her judgement. </p><p>“Yes,” she says, “I think I would like to visit Benoit Blanc who is just a man.” She steps closer — somehow closer than impossibly close — until the toes of her shoes touch his, until they’re chest to chest. “Perhaps not the Benoit Blanc who is <em> just </em>my friend, though.” The last she says while looking up at him through her eyelashes, reading a flash of surprise and pleasure on his face. </p><p>He leans in, making her breath freeze in her chest, but turns his head just enough to slide his lips across her right cheek — entirely chaste, but slow and warm and letting her feel the soft scratch of his stubble. </p><p>“Is this okay?” He asks the question with his breath and his lips and his stubble still against her skin, and it makes the right side of her body erupt in goosebumps.</p><p>“Yes,” she says, voice shaking, her lips almost at his ear, and she can see him shiver. “Very okay.” </p><p>“Then I will see you next week,” he says as he pulls back, puts space back between them, and she feels bereft but she gets it — understands the desire to know him somewhere else before...more. </p><p>She likes that the <em> more </em> feels like a given, though.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It's evening when she arrives, the sun sinking below the horizon. </p><p>Benoit meets her at the airport, which is already very different from the way they usually do things. He wears a suit as always, looks exactly like himself, except he also looks different in a way she can't quite put words to. </p><p>"Marta," he says her name through a smile when she steps past the security line to stand right in front of him, and on a whim, she drops her bag to the ground and hugs him, arms wrapped around his neck and her body pressed against his. </p><p>"Hello," she says into his shoulder. </p><p>And they don't do this, the hugging, so her heart beats in her throat as she waits for him to respond. It's the longest moment of her life, even if it's really just the time of Benoit's deep inhalation (surprise? pleasure?) before she feels his open palms landing on her back. One moves to her neck, sliding past her hoodie onto skin and almost cradling her head, and the other rests just at her waist. He's tentative for a moment and then seems to relax, his hands warm and heavy against her. </p><p>"Hello," he says, and his lips almost brush her left ear, causing a shiver that zips down her spine. </p><p>He feels good against her, like she knew he would, and she wishes she had hugged him before. In the eighteen months they've known each other, in the six months they've been connected by something more than Ransom's greed and cruelty, she wishes she had hugged him. She's not sure why she hasn't, except that with her body pressed to his, she can't help but want more. That was always going to happen. </p><p>For the past week, she's had it in her mind that she will seduce him. There have been <em>plans</em> about how she wants to touch him, how she wants him to touch her. The way he was the last time he left her house, all concerned about being <em>just a man</em> to her, she thinks he needs her to show him. </p><p>So, standing there in the airport, she turns her head and lays a soft kiss against his neck then smiles at his reaction. He shudders, his whole body shifting in her arms, and his hands seem to grab at her, to hold her more firmly. </p><p>And it’s a given, she thinks, that their relationship is changing, but she doesn’t want to leave any room for him to misinterpret her. (<em>Enjoy a more intimate friendship</em>, Benoit had said, and those words have stayed in her brain all week, exactly like he said them.) So yes, she's definitely going to seduce him.</p><p>Honestly, with him in her arms and his hand beginning to make slow circles over her back, the other combing through her hair, it sounds like way too good an idea to start right here in public. </p><p>Before she has a chance to worry about that, an ornery traveler plows into them with a piece of rolling luggage. </p><p>"Watch it," the man yells back at them, as they stumble and lose their grip on each other. She wasn't ready for their hug to end, and based on Benoit's frown, he wasn't either. </p><p>“Shit,” Benoit murmurs under his breath, and Marta laughs — loudly — as they separate. She shakes her head and collects herself. </p><p>"Did you decide where I'm staying?" She asks the question expectantly because she's taken a bit of a gamble in asking Benoit to make the arrangements that she'll pay for this week. Mostly she hopes that he's about to tell her that he plans for her to stay at his home.  </p><p>Benoit looks awkward for a moment — this is why he looks so unlike himself, she realizes, it's because he's lost the calm self-assurance she associates with him — and then draws a breath. </p><p>"If it is acceptable to you, I had planned for you to stay at my house."</p><p><em> enjoy a more intimate friendship</em>, her brain taunts her. </p><p>"Your house?" She hopes that means they're on the same page, and she can feel how she probably lets too much hope into her tone. </p><p>His eyes widen, something like fear. </p><p>"I have a well-appointed guest room, of course."</p><p>“Oh.” Disappointment hits her and he must be able to hear it, to see it in her eyes, even though it's stupid. Of course he plans for her to stay in his guestroom. It's just that he looks <em>too</em> nervous that she might think he means the other thing. </p><p>"I have made no assumptions about this week,” he says, and he looks careful in a way that makes her flush — shame at how she <em> has </em> made assumptions about this week, and how she doesn’t really know at all what kind of intimacies Benoit may want to share. More than anything, she's assumed that she understood him, and suddenly she's not so sure.</p><p>It’s quiet — very awkward and very quiet, and it feels like they’re never awkward like this. She doesn’t know how to break it at all, finds herself scared of having to lie about what she wants.</p><p>"I —" </p><p>"Marta —" </p><p>They start in unison, then pause to stare at each other. He gestures that she should speak, but she shakes her head because, as best as she can tell, she's been pretty open about what she wants. </p><p>"I did not mean to imply that I do not want…" He blinks, apparently at a loss for words. </p><p>"...a more intimate friendship?" </p><p>It makes him smile, slow and calm, more familiar. </p><p>"I would like to enjoy a more intimate friendship with you," he says, and the anxiety in Marta's chest deflates, replaced by a wave of heat. </p><p>She exhales and feels steady on her feet again, less like she might have misinterpreted everything and more hopeful about what's to come. </p><p>"That's good," she says.</p><p>"Perhaps we could continue this conversation at my house?" </p><p>Marta nods and shoulders her bag. </p><p>"Did you make me cookies?" </p><p>"My peanut butter cookies await your judgment," he says, while gesturing with his left hand that they should walk towards the baggage claim. </p><p>Marta clearly surprises him when she reaches out to take his hand, but he quickly relaxes his grip and lets their fingers slide together.  </p><p>“Okay?” She asks quietly, not quite meeting his eyes. </p><p>He answers by squeezing her hand and bringing it to his lips, laying a soft kiss against her knuckles. The feel of his mouth against her and the way he meets her eyes over their hands — she melts a little bit. </p><p>And yes, she thinks, they're on the same page; he just needs her to take the lead. She can do that. </p><p>She's definitely going to seduce him. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He spends the ride to his house with his hand on her knee — Marta takes hold of it once they're in the car and presses it gently in place — and he's shocked at how calm he feels after the nerves he's had all week. As he drives, he narrates the surrounding area from Biloxi westward through small beachfront towns, and she asks questions about his memories and family vacations. It feels normal, like what he’s come to expect of his friendship with Marta, except that his hand is pressed to her knee, her fingers holding him in place.</p><p>It feels like his palm and fingers are meant to curve around her this way, and his thumb draws slow circles over the cotton fabric of her pants so that he can feel the shape of her. It's a gentle intimacy, just past the boundaries of friendly, and he likes how easy it feels to fall into it.</p><p>It's already dark when they arrive at his home, but they adjourn to his porch anyways, drawn by warm night air and soft lights and the occasional blinking of lightning bugs. </p><p>She loses her hoodie, down to a short t-shirt that barely meets the waistband of her wide-legged pants, so he shrugs out of his grey jacket. She watches him, something like open interest that makes him flush, as he rolls up his sleeves and removes his blue floral tie altogether. </p><p>"I don't think I've ever seen you without a tie," Marta tells him, conversational except not, and he thinks they're both looking for the ways that things are changing. </p><p>He doesn't reply, just guides her outside, and it's familiar but not. Different enough to make everything exciting, even making Marta tea. </p><p>She turns down real food, but as they sip from the pot of tea he prepares, she sets about demolishing two of his peanut butter cookies.</p><p>At her first bite, she makes a noise that he’d have thought was better reserved for the bedroom. Nonetheless, he appreciates the compliment. </p><p>"Your mother taught you?" </p><p>"Yes, she did," he says. Marta nods as she chews.</p><p>“You should thank her for the recipe. Women like men who make good cookies.” She pronounces the words like a solemn truth.</p><p>“I will let her know you said that,” he says, unable to hold back a smile.</p><p>“She knows about me?” She sounds surprised as she asks the question, though also like the idea of it makes her very happy. He has a hard time understanding why she'd ever doubt it. </p><p>“I have indeed spoken of my good friend Marta Cabrera on many occasions.” </p><p>She smiles widely, and he imagines he’s doing something very wrong if she thinks he might not have told his mother about her. The lines between them, the way their friendship has been defined, has not been enough, he thinks. He’s failed to make her understand how important she is, how important her friendship is to him.</p><p>"You are very close with your mother, aren’t you?" </p><p>"Yes, I suppose I am," he says. </p><p>“How close does she live? I mean, how far away is New Orleans?” </p><p>"Her home is about an hour or two away, near where she met my father. I believe it gives her comfort to be where the memories of him are stronger."</p><p>She smiles at that, and pops another piece of cookie into her mouth. </p><p>In the evening light, Marta looks especially peaceful, and he regrets that he has held himself back from staying with her before, from seeing her in the evenings. Actually, though, he's still not quite sure whether he has been the one holding back, or if Marta has. Perhaps they've both been cautious, even overly-cautious.</p><p>He had been telling the truth as best he understood it when he told her that he wants to know her outside the boundaries of the Cabrera estate. It's <em>is</em> true.</p><p>He also thinks that perhaps he was not being fully honest with <em>himself</em>. There's nothing about that house that makes him scared of reading too much into Marta's affections. It's how much she means to him and how singular she is in his life, not their location at any given moment, that frightens him. </p><p>However, something shifted last week, and he knows he has been too slow to accept it.</p><p>As he's considered plans for her much-anticipated visit, he has been so extremely careful not to assume things that he thinks perhaps he has been a fool. Perhaps there were some things that were not so much assumptions as obvious endpoints. </p><p>But Marta's voice has haunted him all week: <em>"not the Benoit Blanc who is </em> <em>just my friend." </em>And he's had to close out possibilities to keep himself from going mad with fantasies, from thinking about things that he still believes are too good to be true. </p><p>His Marta-induced reverie is broken by a noisy gull overhead, which is when he notices Marta staring at him, clearly lost in her own thoughts. A moment passes and she meets his eyes, looking just a hair embarrassed to be caught staring. </p><p>"If I were to ask you what you're thinking about, would you be able to tell me without losing those cookies?" </p><p>Marta laughs, but she looks sure of herself, confident. It is a very good look on her.</p><p>"I was thinking about what I want to do this week," she says, her eyebrows raised suggestively in a way that announces that there's much more to it. </p><p>"And what do you want to do this week?" He asks the question gamely. </p><p>"I want to go on a case with you." The obvious, of course. There is already a file on his desk to discuss in the morning — he has been anticipating seeing her reaction. "And," she says, "I'm going to seduce you."</p><p>He almost chokes on a sip of his tea, but then her calm demeanor catches up to him. </p><p>"Is that a fact, now?"</p><p>"Yes," she says, and he watches the barest hint of uncertainty creep across her features. "Assuming you want to be seduced."</p><p>It is charming, almost unbelievably so, except for the fact that he has found her charming since he wasn't sure if he was a damned fool to search so hard for evidence of her innocence — evidence that the facts were not what they seemed — while she openly sabotaged his investigation. Finding Marta endlessly charming seems to be a terminal affliction, but he cannot say that he's all that bothered about it. </p><p>"I believe I am amenable to a seduction by Marta Cabrera," he says, striving for the same calm she's protecting. </p><p>"Good." She smiles at him as though they've agreed to have tea or cookies or something equally innocuous that they have done many times before. </p><p>He releases a slow breath. </p><p>"It has been an awfully long time since I have been seduced. Or done any seducing," he says. </p><p>"For me, too.” She looks at him seriously. “It was hard to get close to people when we moved to Boston. We had to be so careful, but also everyone there is so…” She makes a cringey face, and Benoit smiles his understanding. </p><p>“I was engaged to a lovely woman many years ago,” he says, and he hasn’t had a reason to tell anyone about Samantha for a long time. “My lifestyle, all the traveling I do, it was too much for her to handle.”</p><p>“And since then?” </p><p>“I have had some company from time to time,” he says, “but never anyone serious, and not for a few years.” </p><p>She looks at him like he is crazy. </p><p>“You must have people throw themselves at you during every investigation.” </p><p>“Throw themselves at me?” </p><p>“You are very attractive,” Marta tells him, so matter of fact with her eyes raking up and down his chest, and he has no idea how to react to that. The truth is that he’s not wholly unfamiliar with people throwing themselves at him, but it is also true that his demeanor is not one that typically invites confidences.</p><p>“I do not become involved with people in my cases, generally speaking,” he says, trailing his eyes over the glaring exception to that rule. “Besides which, for the past year I have had my eye on someone.”</p><p>Their eyes meet, and she smiles.</p><p>“The last time for me, I met someone on a dating app. It was probably six months before Harlan died.” Two years for her, then.</p><p>“That is a long time to spend without companionship, especially for such a beautiful young woman.” </p><p>She shrugs, seemingly unfazed by his compliment.</p><p>“Like you said, I’ve had my eye on someone.” She looks at him, not even a hint of shyness and a lot of desire, and he <em> wants </em> her.  </p><p>He thinks his lifestyle is no hindrance to her, that she wants him, that he wants her. He still thinks all of this may be too good to be true, and then Marta stands up and holds out her hand. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She pulls him up from his chair on the porch, and they walk inside together, hand in hand. Once they’re standing in his living room, she stops in front of him and sets her hands on his shoulders.</p><p>“Can I?” She looks up at him through her eyelashes as her hands smooth across his chest, sending tiny shivers over his skin, through his muscle. Her fingers are cool and gentle and he’s not sure he could deny her much of anything in normal circumstances, but certainly not while she touches him like this.</p><p>“You may,” he says, nods his agreement though he’s not exactly sure to what he has just agreed.</p><p>“I have wanted to do this for a really long time,” she says, voice barely a whisper, as her right hand slides under his left brace and she pulls it slowly down his arm, her hand stroking over him all the way down. </p><p>He’s captivated by the innocence of the gesture, and then he shifts his gaze from the path of her hand to her face. </p><p>Marta’s eyes are slightly hooded as she follows the progress of her fingers down his left arm, her lips parted. Once she slides the brace fully off, over his hand, she inhales a shaky breath and exhales something that’s almost a moan.</p><p>In an instant, any sense of the gesture as innocent vanishes, and arousal nearly stabs through him.</p><p>"Lord, Marta.” </p><p>She nods, acknowledging his minor blaspheming, and then slides her left hand under the right brace. Her nails scratch across his shirt, raising goosebumps down his chest, and he shivers almost violently.</p><p>He groans as her left hand smooths down his side to bring his braces all the way down. It’s when her hands begin to play with the fallen straps, gathering the material just below his stomach in a way that feels like an unbearable tease, that she finally looks back up to meet his eyes.</p><p>“I knew that would be really hot,” she says, shooting what can only be called a filthy smile up at him. He feels he's about to combust, so he leans down, not quite to kiss her — more to offer, just his mouth near hers since he is quite enjoying being seduced.</p><p>He shivers at the feel of his lower lip brushing against hers, at her breath washing over his chin. Soft brushes of their lips linger, just enough feeling to tingle and tease, and he groans. His excitement is quickly swallowed by her eagerness as she pushes up on her toes and deepens the kiss.</p><p>She moans, a soft gorgeous sound into his mouth, and her tongue touches behind his front teeth. </p><p>“Take us to your bedroom,” she murmurs, her hands suddenly firm on his lower back, like she’s preparing to hold on for the ride.</p><p>They stumble as he walks her backwards, down the short hall to his bedroom, lips fused together.</p><p>As they approach the bed, he’s about to turn them — to ensure that Marta lands on top of him — when she all but tugs him down on top of her before he can maneuver them. Their lips finally part when they fall onto the bed, Benoit catching himself above her with his knees straddling her hips.</p><p>“I’m going to take off your shirt,” she tells him, nimble fingers working down his buttons, and he holds himself still above her, transfixed by the quiet focus of her face as she works.</p><p>Everything seems to move too quickly, flashes of sensation as she tugs the shirt off behind him and raises his undershirt, her hands smoothing over skin and clearly making a map of his chest and his back. Her nails glide lightly across the same path, his back and his chest and flicking over his nipples, leaving him shuddering on top of her. </p><p>She pushes herself up enough to press her lips against his neck.</p><p>"My shirt, now," she mumbles into his shoulder. </p><p>He nods and pulls it over her head easily, leaving her sprawled under him in a simple white bra, and then moves his mouth down her body, trying to be slow enough that he can remember every moment of this later. Her skin tastes wonderful — a little salty and <em>Marta — </em>and she breathes a low sigh, her hand encouraging him along as he approaches the swell of her left breast. </p><p>For a moment, he stops, lips pressed to a freckle in the center of her chest so that he can feel the pound of each of her heartbeats. He thinks about how he wants to kiss every freckle he can see, but she’s wild underneath him — writhing and encouraging and he couldn't slow down for anything. </p><p>Her bra is hardly tossed aside, he's hardly gotten to drag his tongue over her breasts, before her hands have slipped inside his slacks. The feeling of her fist closing around his cock makes it nearly impossible to keep his eyes open. </p><p>They slide up the bed, around, and then she’s wrenching her pants and undergarments down her legs. His hand drifts between her thighs, over coarse hairs slick with arousal, and Marta makes a high-pitched desperate noise in the back of her throat. </p><p>“Inside,” she says, hips bucking against his hand, and he pushes two fingers into her warmth, enraptured as her breath begins to come in sharp pants.</p><p>He takes a deep breath and tries to concentrate again, to slow things down so that he can remember this later. The sounds Marta makes, high pitched whimpers fading into a quiet curse under her breath — <em> shit, shit, shit </em> — are enough to make him almost throb where he’s pressed against her hip, and her forehead and upper lip are slightly beaded with sweat as he works her up and up. Her lips part, head thrown back, and her whole body goes tense underneath him and around him. </p><p>“Oh god,” she says a moment later, still so quiet, but her hand pushes his arm away as she fights to catch her breath. “I was supposed to be seducing <em> you</em>.” </p><p>Benoit chuckles. </p><p>“You succeeded admirably in your seduction,” he says, earning a full smile and Marta’s arms wrapped around him. He’s pressed more firmly on top of her as they shimmy out of the rest of their clothes. </p><p>“I’m on the pill,” she says, shooting him an expectant look, to which he nods. Safe, they’re safe, and it’s been a very long time since he’s been with someone like this — this easy, trusting assurance.</p><p>And then Marta’s fingers are around him, positioning him to push inside of her. </p><p>It is nearly too much to handle — the way it has been so long, and the way he is so aroused, and the way it is Marta Cabrera and her kind, perfect heart. </p><p>They groan together as he sinks into her, as she pulls him against her. There's a moment of stillness, and then she shifts underneath him, changes the angle, and begins to moan as he moves his hips. </p><p>"Benoit," she says his name, a low pleased whimper, repeated when he presses his pelvis just right against her. And this is what he needs to hold out for her, is a puzzle — how to make Marta keep moaning his name. </p><p>It helps that she angles her hips against him, rides him from beneath so that he can feel her climb towards an orgasm. She groans his name again between biting his shoulder, her whole body pulsing around him. </p><p>As he worries he's going to lose himself, she moves suddenly, and he finds himself flat on his back with Marta sitting astride him. She grins down, something like triumph, and then moves her hips, gorgeous as she rocks over him at a more easy pace. </p><p>The pleasure of her body around him is indescribably good, but as Benoit looks up at her above him, he is very content to enjoy her slowly like this.</p><p>From this angle, he can watch every minute change in her expression and demeanor as he touches her: Her sigh when he cups her breasts. The way her neck goes soft when he presses his fingers down her spine. The stutter her hips make when he drags the back of a fingernail over her nipple. </p><p>When he pinches her nipples between index fingers and thumbs, her rocking pace increases to near desperation, and he has to clench his teeth to keep from chasing his own orgasm. Her hands move over his, directing him to pinch harder, and then she’s coming on top of him, all gasps of his name and letting her full weight fall to his hands. </p><p>“Marta.” He groans and thrusts up against her, unable to hold back. She must be purposefully squeezing, clenching tighter around him, because it's suddenly too much to handle. </p><p>"Shit," he grunts, fingers flexing on her hips as he tries to hold on, but she drives him over the edge. He shouts her name againas he comes. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>"Marta," he sighs, and she's not sure if it's been seconds or hours. </p><p>She's still sprawled across his chest, still tired and blissed out, and she can't remember ever having sex that good the first time with someone. Of course, she's never set out to seduce her best friend before, either. </p><p>"Benoit," she says by way of greeting, though her voice comes out scratchy. </p><p>His hands are soft and careful as they smooth across her naked back, and she shivers atop him. </p><p>"I feel as though I should thank you for deciding to seduce me," he says, words spoken almost into the top of her head, and she pushes herself up enough to meet his eyes. His gaze dips down to her breasts and then back up.</p><p>"You're welcome?" </p><p>He smiles and rolls the both of them over, allows her to settle on her back so that he's propped on her left side. The hand that had been smoothing over her back runs up the center of her chest until he's cupping her right breast.</p><p>"I was nervous about how to take this kind of step," he says, a quiet admission, and she can't help the hand that reaches up to touch his cheek because he is very adorable. </p><p>"I could tell." </p><p>He smiles and then leans down to kiss her left shoulder. </p><p>"But you wanted this?" She asks the question with probably too much nerves given how enthusiastic he was, and he looks up from where he's still pressing his lips to her skin with wide eyes that narrow slightly. Like he's silently asking how she could ask such a silly question. </p><p>"Yes," he says, slowly, then kisses her shoulder again. "It's safe to say that, yes, I wanted this."</p><p>He nuzzles into the spot where her left shoulder meets her neck, letting her feel the soft scratch of stubble along with lips and tongue, and she can't help her shiver and the long, low moan. When he pulls back, it is only to begin dropping small kisses along her skin, and she stretches her head back to accommodate him.</p><p>"And you liked it even though I was bossy?" </p><p>He smiles so she can feel it, but doesn’t stop kissing her neck to ask, </p><p>"Is that what you call it?" </p><p>"Someone said it once," she says as she shrugs lazily, but then a creeping tendril of doubt sneaks in. "Was I too bossy?" </p><p>He pulls back, leaving her skin cold and almost hungry for him, so that he looks directly into her eyes. She sees only blue and kindness and pleasure. </p><p>"No, Marta. You were marvelous." He lays another kiss against her shoulder and then pulls back to meet her eyes again. "Perfect."</p><p>"You like bossy?" </p><p>His brow wrinkles for a moment as though she's stumped him. </p><p>"I do believe I just like <em> you</em>.” </p><p>It makes her smile, too much because he’s too good, and she reaches for him. With her fingers gripping his hair as much as she can, she pulls his mouth down against hers. He’s warm and pliant against her, holds himself still and lets her kiss him deeply, and she can feel liquid desire pool below her belly. She already wants him again. </p><p>When she lets him go, he doesn’t pull back far, and his eyes are slightly glazed.</p><p>"I may enjoy you being bossy,” he says, lips pressed together like he’s biting back a smile, and she laughs.</p><p>"My first time, my boyfriend asked me if it was good for me, and it wasn't really. But…" </p><p>He drops his head, she thinks probably to hide his first impulse to laugh. He’s not smiling when he leans back over her, though, to kiss her softly — pity for her mediocre first time turned terrible as she bent over the toilet.</p><p>“Poor girl,” he says, barely a sigh. "You had to learn to make sure it was good."</p><p>"I suppose that's right."</p><p>He dips his head back down to where he’d left off on her neck, slow kisses moving down to her chest — from the places his tongue circles over her skin, she knows he’s searching out freckles.</p><p>“You were perfect,” he says to her as his lips slide lower, laying soft kisses on a path headed down to her breasts.</p><p>"Benoit,” she says, calling his attention from her body and back towards her insecurities. “How long have you wanted this?" Her hand smooths down from his hair to his back, as if to explain what she means by <em> this</em>.  </p><p>He pulls back only just enough to answer, his eyes trained on her chest and not her face. </p><p>"I fear you will think less of me to know how early in our acquaintance I thought of you this way."</p><p>"I don't mind," she says, "I've wanted you for a long time." He glances up at her, looking embarrassed but pleased about that, she thinks.</p><p>Instead of answering, he presses a kiss between her breasts, his mouth warm. </p><p>"By the time I knew you were guilty of nothing more than having a kind heart and loving your friends and family," he says, words spoken directly into her skin from where his mouth is set between her breasts, above her heart, "I could not help but want you." </p><p>She shivers because the words are beautiful and because his mouth on her — the barest scratch of his stubble on the insides of her breasts — feels amazing. She combs her fingers through his hair. </p><p>“When you came back before the trial,” she says. “Everything was too much, but I remember how glad I was to see you. I always wished I had more reasons to see you or call you.”</p><p>“You could call me at any time,” he says, bringing his mouth away from her chest to meet her eye. </p><p>“Now,” she says, all agreement. “But then? I would have to lie about a reason or else tell you I was calling just because I like to hear your voice before I go to bed.” </p><p>He smiles at that, eyes moving over her face quickly before he leans forward and kisses her — soft and sweet. When he pulls back, his lips drift back down her neck to her chest, but this time he turns his head just enough that she can feel his lips on her right breast, pressing soft kisses and avoiding her nipple. It makes her shiver and shift underneath him, trying to move her nipple into the path of his mouth. </p><p>She finally succeeds, or else he finally relents, and she can’t help the groan at the feel of his warm breath and his soft lips closing around her. Her fingers comb through his hair again and hold him to her, and he takes the hint easily, applying more pressure until she’s almost wild underneath him. </p><p>He lets her move his mouth to her left breast, and by the time she tugs him backwards, she’s aching, seeking pressure in the clench of her thighs.</p><p>“As I do not wish you to suffer the fate you did on your first time,” he says, “perhaps you will do me the favor of helping me make this perfect for you?" </p><p>She doesn't even have time to wrap her head around what he means before he’s begun to move down her body, positioning himself easily between her legs. Marta sighs and lets her thighs fall open for him.</p><p>His tongue makes a careful flick over her clitoris, and she imagines that he can taste not just her but the both of them. As though verifying this, Benoit presses his tongue down, dipping inside of her, and makes a tiny pleased moan. The sound of him, the thought of him enjoying it, gives her pleasure as much as his tongue. </p><p>Marta relaxes back on the bed, legs spread and her hand combing through Benoit's hair, losing herself in the careful work of his tongue. It is warm and pleasant, sending heat up and down her legs, but —</p><p>"I prefer it with fingers inside," she tells him, and if he's shocked by her being straightforward (she knows enough men are) he doesn't show it. Instead, the way he meets her eyes, even with his tongue still pressed to her, he seems grateful.</p><p>He maneuvers himself so that he can push a finger inside of her, careful at first and then more firmly. At first, he explores her with his tongue and finger in tandem, building the sensation for her, but soon he pulls back to watch her face. The stretch inside her increases and he starts to move his hand, something expectant, maybe questioning, on his face as he leans half over her. </p><p>She nods, wants to tell him he's on the right track, but then he shifts again and talking becomes impossible. </p><p>"That's," she gasps as he presses more somehow, his angle exactly right. "Good,"she says, barely audible. He moves again, pressing deep inside her. "So…"</p><p>He moves faster, harder, brings her to some higher plane where she couldn't find words even if she had the breath in her lungs to say them. She just grips his right arm where it props him up next to her, probably digging her fingernails in too hard.</p><p>“Marta,” she hears, like he’s sighing her name as he watches her come apart, and it’s all too much. Her lips part, maybe to cry out his name or God's, but no sound comes out, and she pushes on his arm. </p><p>His hand stops, still touching her, but she has a moment to gasp in a breath. </p><p>“Oh my god,” she says — she’s not sure she could say anything else. </p><p>He presses his fingers inside of her again, moving slowly but deep, and seems to be waiting for her permission. </p><p>She nods adamantly and lifts her legs, curls one foot around his thigh so that the angle is even more perfect when he starts moving again.</p><p>In this position, he’s fucking her more, his fingers thrusting harder inside of her, and it doesn’t take long to feel the first cresting wave of orgasm.</p><p>"Don’t stop,” she says, voice barely making noise at all, and he nods, determined and serious. She's not sure anyone has ever looked so serious about her pleasure before, and it makes everything better, more intense. </p><p>He doesn't stop as she comes around his fingers; he keeps pushing her higher and more, reduces her to a hyperventilating mess on the bed. The entire world is the pleasure that pulses through her body and the goosebumps on her skin and his blue eyes watching her.</p><p>Her vision goes white and she's struggling to breathe when she finally presses of his arm, when he finally pulls back.</p><p>"Oh my God," she says, voice tired and breaking. "Oh my God.</p><p>“Marta,” he sighs her name and kisses her forehead — beaded with sweat — and then her lips. </p><p>She reaches for him, to return the favor, but he brushes off her attempt in favor of kissing her softly as she relaxes.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next morning, she wakes up alone, naked and pleasantly sore and tangled in crisp white sheets. For a moment, she forgets where she is, but then she hears rustling in the other room and the sound of Benoit's voice quietly humming a tune. It makes her smile and relax back against his pillow. </p><p>She hadn't gotten much of a chance to notice his bedroom the previous night, so she looks around now. It's nice — light and airy with walls in pale yellow, a few large pieces of furniture, some paintings on the wall — but she thinks even if she didn't already know, she could tell he doesn't spend much time here. Just like the rest of his house, it's clearly not his priority to make it very personal. </p><p>That's why he puts so much attention on his clothes, she thinks, since they travel with him where he goes. </p><p>As she sits up and slides her legs to the side of the bed, she looks over to the pile of clothes they had straightened last night before going to sleep. His grey slacks are there, folded in half with the suspenders still buttoned in place, his shirt, the tank-style undershirt, and the grey socks patterned with blue flowers, but it looks like he has retrieved the silky blue boxer shorts. (Does he coordinate his underwear with his tie and socks, she wonders, or is that a coincidence? She's excited to find out the answer to this question.)</p><p>She imagines him in the other room wearing nothing but his underwear, and it makes her smile.</p><p>She pulls his dress shirt from the pile — cream colored and gently worn and soft and smelling like him — and slides it over her shoulders before doing two of the buttons to hold it closed.</p><p>A quick trip to the bathroom — she'd unpacked her toiletries the night before, when they'd taken turns in the bathroom before bed, so her toothbrush sits beside his freshly used one — and she walks towards the sound of his voice. </p><p>Like the rest of the house, the kitchen is cozy, so she's not very far away from him when she stops at the small dining table in the corner. He's just as naked as she'd imagined, puttering at the counter in boxer shorts while humming a tune she doesn't know, so she leans against the wooden table to watch, admiring the build of muscles on his back, down his legs.  </p><p>As she watches him, she remembers the feel of him on top of her, of him between her thighs. She likes his body as much as she knew she would — solid and dusted with hair, strong without being hard — and watching him now is enough to make desire pulse inside of her. </p><p>His humming breaks into soft singing — “<em>too many mornings</em>,” and then some words she can’t make out — as he pours coffee from a french press into two mugs. For the first time, she looks past his back and his bare legs to see the tray sitting on the counter. Onto it, he's placed several pieces of china that look to be from the same very nice but very old set he'd served her tea from last night: a sugar dish, a tiny pitcher of milk, and two matching cups. Taller than everything else on the tray is a glass of water holding one of the large pink roses that grow on his porch.</p><p>She can't help but grin because he was going to bring her coffee in bed with a flower, and it strikes her as very romantic.</p><p>It's when he seems to have finished his task that his quiet singing breaks into a full performance, his right arm raised theatrically: </p><p>"All those times I'd look up to see, Marta standing at the door, Marta moving to the bed, Marta resting in my arm —”</p><p>He must glimpse her from the corner of his eye because he jumps a little.</p><p>"Marta.” His cheeks are flushed pink, and she’s never seen anyone so cute. </p><p>"I liked your singing," she says. She wants to tell him that she likes it <em>a lot</em>, the way he’s singing mostly naked in the kitchen and making her coffee, that she wishes this was every single morning.   </p><p>"I… Thank you," he says and finally meets her eyes, which is when he seems to notice what she's wearing for the first time.</p><p>His eyes drift down her body slowly, and she can feel it like he's touching her. She can’t help but pose as he watches her, can’t help but lean back and turn so that it’s very clear that she wears nothing underneath his shirt. His lips part and his whole face gets serious.</p><p>"Good Lord."</p><p>She can see the effect she has on him — the way he grows hard beneath the thin layer of fabric that covers him — and it makes arousal twist between her legs. </p><p>It only takes him five steps to stalk across the kitchen towards her, but by the time he reaches her, she's aching for him. She’s pathetic, she thinks — how much she wants him, this is <em> pathetic </em> — and then he kisses her, hard, his hand firm at the back of her head.</p><p>“I made coffee,” he mumbles between kisses that taste like toothpaste and just a hint of sweet coffee, like maybe he’s snuck half a sip. “It will get cold.”</p><p>“Uh huh.” </p><p>She can feel his smile against her lips, and she moves her hands between them to undo the buttons holding his shirt closed around her. He pulls back to watch as she flicks the second one, and then he brushes her hands away. Her eyes remain transfixed on his face — on the way she can read lust and adoration, on the way that he is so very good to look at — as he pulls open the shirt and stares at her. </p><p>She’d swear he’s memorizing her, or maybe the moment, and then he kisses her again, his bare chest against hers while she pushes down his boxer shorts. He feels good in her hands — all velvet skin but so thick and hard and ready — so she tugs him to press against her.</p><p>He groans into her mouth at the feel of her wetness over the head of his cock, and they scramble together to press him inside. The angle is awkward, though — the table is too low — and she ends up with her legs wrapped high on his waist, knees propped over his arms.</p><p>Benoit holds her hips up as she guides him inside, and his first thrust sends her sprawling backwards on he table, her hands grasping for purchase.</p><p>Marta can’t help a noise, something like an ecstatic shout, at the feel of him. He’s somehow deeper than last night, better this time in the light of the morning after. </p><p>He holds almost unbearably still, staring at her for a moment, something like wonder or shock on his face as he stands at the edge of the table, his hands holding her hips up so firmly. </p><p>She want to tell him to move, <em>please</em>, but she already feels so close that can't even speak. Instead she nods adamantly and bucks her hips against his in his grasp. Benoit groans, something that might be her name, and thrusts again. </p><p>Once they start to really move against each other, she comes <em> so fast</em>; goosebumps rise across her whole body and all she can do is hold on.</p><p>He follows shortly after, collapsing on top of her with a vague grunt, and after she catches her breath, Marta can’t help but laugh. </p><p>“I think we’re very good at this,” she says, a quiet suggestion whispered into his hair, and she can feel him chuckle before he pushes himself back up over her to meet her lips. </p><p>He looks exhausted, so she presses him into a chair and rises to bring over his tray of coffee. As she sets it on the table between them, she lifts the rose to sniff it, meeting his eyes over the soft pink petals.</p><p>They set about drinking their mostly-hot coffee and it feels familiar — sort of how they always are.</p><p>She reaches across and sets her hand on his bare stomach, rubs a soft circle up to his chest, just because she wants to. </p><p>So, actually, it's much better than they always are.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>After coffee, they shower and dress before having breakfast on the patio, which gives him a few minutes to marvel about their time together.</p><p>It is not at all surprising that Marta is sure of herself — that she knows what she wants, that she is honest. In practice, though, it’s surprising if only because he has never begun a sexual relationship with someone that has felt so easy. </p><p>He’d shocked himself this morning, with how quickly and completely he’d been overcome with the need for her. And it’s been quite a long time for him, specifically a long time with fantasies of Marta Cabrera dancing through his head, but he’s never thought of himself as a man who would be so easily undone. </p><p>Pathetic, that’s what he is. (Except for the way she had been there, wanting him just as much. The way she had lost herself so quickly, sprawled across his table, will be something he thinks about for a long time.)</p><p>In between the pathetic desire for her has been a constant creeping melancholy, too. So many mornings he's missed out on being with Marta. So many he will miss when she goes home. </p><p>The thought of being physically apart from her, of going back to the way things have been, makes his chest ache. When she was only his friend, when they were avoiding putting words to any of this, it had all felt like a lot: the number of trips he’s taken to Boston, the number of late-night phone calls. </p><p>Now, though, all of that is obviously too little, and he’s at a loss for how to fix it. He's still half-consumed with that thought as they eat the pastries he’d purchased yesterday from a bakery in town.</p><p>"You're thinking very loudly," Marta says, snapping him from his worries. </p><p>“I suppose I am merely considering the constraints upon us,” he says. “Boston is very far away.”</p><p>“I figure neither of us have to live where we do.” Marta shrugs her shoulders as though this is all easy. “And I don’t know if you heard, but I recently came into a lot of money. I can travel.” </p><p>He laughs at that, soothed that even if there's no real closure, he's not alone in thinking about it.</p><p>She rises from her chair and bends over him to meet his lips, soft and easy, and he doesn’t think he had been conscious of some of the ways Marta had held herself back until he sees her like this — holding nothing back. </p><p>"I don’t want to be apart from you, either,” she says, quiet murmur against his lips, and his neck goes soft as she deepens the kiss. Her tongue brushes his lower lip and he can’t help a groan against her mouth, can’t help the way his fingers wrap around her elbow to ground himself in her. </p><p>When she pulls back, he’s overwhelmed with her, slightly foggy with desire, but the way she smiles down at him — the way her tongue traces the edge of her lip like she’s also savoring the kiss — means he doesn’t mind how pathetic he feels.</p><p>And then she changes gears.</p><p>“So, where is the case?” She asks the question expectantly, excitedly. </p><p>“On my desk,” he begins, and is surprised when she presses him back into his chair and darts inside, clearly anticipating this. </p><p>In the excitement of starting a sexual relationship, the excitement of <em> this </em>has gotten a little lost, but he is very pleased to get to work with Marta. He’s already come to look for her insights in most of his cases, and he’s longed to have her there with him many times in the past year. </p><p>Having Marta on an investigation sounds like heaven, and he thinks that actually if Marta wants to work with him more often, he has no reason to worry about future mornings.</p><p>She comes back through the door a moment later and drops the case file on his small patio table. Then she circles it to return to his chair and produces his glasses, which she slides delicately onto his face. Her fingers tickle along the side of his nose, his cheeks, his ears, and he shivers as he looks up at her. </p><p>“You are very cute in your glasses,” she says, as though explaining herself, and he reaches up to pull her down into a short kiss.</p><p>They pull their chairs together to look over the file, and he’s excited to know what she’ll think of Jonathan Allen, the twenty-something son of Mrs. Jennifer Allen, a long-time widow who had recently won the lottery. The client in question has offered a hefty sum to look into the circumstances of his mother's attachment to her now-former maid, Ms. Amanda Johnston. </p><p>He has imagined what she’ll say when she sees the bare facts of the case, and he’s not disappointed as he watches her scowl and then look up at him with a frown. </p><p>“I don’t trust this guy,” Marta says, and he does his best not to react.</p><p>“You don’t think Ms. Johnston may be up to something, getting close to Mrs. Allen?” </p><p>“No,” she says simply. “I think the son does not like the idea of the help becoming his step-mother.” </p><p>“Mrs. Allen is older —”</p><p>“Mrs. Allen is fifty! And she’s very pretty.” Marta looks at a picture she’s pulled from the folder of a white woman with dark curly hair, close to his age, who he has to agree has aged very gracefully, standing with a striking younger woman with blond hair. “And Ms. Johnston is older than I am.”</p><p>She looks up at him, a trace of nerves across her face because they’ve never really spoken about it, this elephant between them.</p><p>“It’s not so strange, is it, that someone would fall in love with an older person?”</p><p>He takes a breath, wonders what he’s supposed to say, and finally settles on: </p><p>“No. I don’t suppose it is so strange.”</p><p>“More people would wonder what Mrs. Allen sees in Ms. Johnston, wouldn't they?” </p><p>"She is a lovely woman, and they have a lot in common," Benoit defends the relationship of the two women, pointing to a picture of them together. Whims of lottery fortunes aside, they also come from similar class backgrounds.  </p><p>"I hope they're in love," Marta says, and it makes him smile. This is what he likes about talking through a case with her — the way it’s all about her heart. Someone who doesn't understand Marta's heart would think that's a bad thing, he imagines.</p><p>“I suppose that is what we will find out,” he says.</p><p>"But why? No one is dead, right? There has been no crime?"</p><p>"There has not." </p><p>"It's almost like the son knows that you'll find something incriminating, isn't it?"</p><p>"It is almost exactly like that," he says, and Marta blows out a breath and narrows her eyes at the picture of Mr. Allen. </p><p>"You take a case when you think your method can help someone," Marta says, and he can't help but smile. He's very pleased that she understands his purpose, or at least the puzzle he wants to solve, so easily without him having to say it. "So what do we do?" </p><p>"Well, the young Mr. Allen suggested we may begin by attending a party." He holds up the invite to Mrs. Allen's black tie ball, scheduled in two days' time. </p><p>Marta grins, obviously delighted.</p><p>“So we get to go to a ball while we prove that this guy is just an asshole who looks down on the help?” </p><p>He raises an eyebrow at her.</p><p>“I...usually prefer to be more dispassionate in my planning," he says, trying to cover his amusement. "But I suppose that is one way to think about it.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>sequel forthcoming.<br/>https://cdnph.upi.com/svc/sv/i/6391599132709/2020/1/15991333117414/No-Time-to-Die-Daniel-Craig-Ana-de-Armas-join-forces-in-new-trailer.jpg<br/>;)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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